A woman received a phone call one afternoon. The caller identified himself as an investigator out of Dallas County. He said a warrant had been issued for her arrest and that she should reveal her location so the investigator could ”take care of this matter before it escalates any further”. Otherwise, he told her, “the police can pull you over and arrest you. They will take you to jail and you will have a lot more problems than you have right now”.

What was her crime? Nothing! It was a scare tactic used by collectors to get her to turn over her car to repossession specialists. She had fallen behind on her car payments when unemployment ran out. Now the collectors were taunting her with threats of arrest and incarceration if she did not surrender the vehicle.

What the collectors did is illegal, not to mention unethical. They lied to her to intimidate and frighten her into surrendering the car. If she had been able to record the conversation as proof of the dialog she could have sued the collectors for $1,000.